


Going Home

by squireofgeekdom



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Trans Character, Empurata, Functionist Universe, Functionist Universe typical body horror, Gen, Generally treat the Functionist Universe tag as a warning, Implied Transphobia, Implied/Referenced Brainwashing, Not Canon Compliant as of Lost Light 21, Past Brainwashing, but more specific warnings:, references to past abuse, specifics on warnings will be provided in the notes chapter-by-chapter
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-18
Updated: 2018-10-15
Packaged: 2019-07-14 02:04:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16030727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/squireofgeekdom/pseuds/squireofgeekdom
Summary: Megatron in the Functionist Universe, and eight Cybertronians he recognizes.(or: sometimes home is what you make of it.)





	1. Anode

**Author's Note:**

> On process:
> 
> me: you know, I really like that the Functionist Universe didn't do the typical mirrorverse thing, showing duplicates of all the major characters, it really emphasizes the magnitude of the change to the universe
> 
> also me: okay but consider the potential for Megatron angst of having him interact with more doubles of people he knows from the main universe
> 
> me: .... yknow what good point I'll get right on that. 
> 
> \---
> 
> This fic is the result of a lot of long conversations/excited yelling with rimahadley about how various functionist universe versions of characters would end up, and a lot of searching tfwiki for character's time and mode of creation. Thanks as well to Veto_power_over_clocks, who's also been beta reading!  
> Chapters are titled based on the character in the main universe. This fic goes from Luna 1's departure through the end of Lost Light 6, and then beyond.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A chunk of this is Anode talking about gender dysphoria, with some implied transphobia mentioned. To skip that jump from “You were a blacksmith.” to “A little’s better than none.”

The cave is full of bodies.

A medic ducks past him as he stares in through the entrance at the hastily cobbled-together gurneys. It’s a far cry from Ratchet’s medbay, no real medical slabs and the barest equipment carried out in the evacuation or scavenged in the few hours after Luna 1’s departure.

(He doesn’t check his chrono to find out how long it’s been since then. It already feels like an eternity.)

But, he considers, looking at the Cybertronians spread across the room amidst the lanterns and the fuel pumps, given the haste of the evacuation, it shows a high degree of care. The cave is one of the larger parts of the tunnel system in which they have taken refuge, and accommodates the dozens of injured. 

A shattered wing on a bulky flier catches his eye -

_ \- you did this - _

“Hey,”

He turns around. 

Anode is lying on one of the makeshift gurneys, as First Aid - First Aid’s double - finishes welding a patch on her side, the glow of the torch sparking some light off the cave walls, adding to the light of the haphazardly placed lanterns.“You stuck around.” She says, with a lopsided smile.

He nods, feeling a lump in his throat.

“Heh. Good.” She says, “You were really something. Too much to hope for that your whole crew stayed?”

He shakes his head, and waves towards Terminus.

“That’s rough.” She acknowledges, as First Aid seals the final touches and steps away to the next patient, further down the cave. “Still, better than a kick in the t-cog.” Maybe she notices him frowning, because she adds. “We can use you. Really, I think -” She looks around the makeshift gurneys crammed into the cave. “We can use you.”

He frowns, skeptical. She looks at him. “Why’d you stay?”

“I -” What can he say? It’s hard enough to force himself to say ‘I was left behind,’ but to say that, to say ‘it wasn’t my choice,’ to her, who was born in this universe, whose choice had been to join the resistance -

It would feel hollow. Hollow and cold; no matter what he’s lost. 

“Oh.” She says, after a few moments of silence, watching him, “Well, I’d keep that on the down low. Probably not great for morale. Don’t worry about me,” she adds, “I’ve been around longer than most of them. And,” She says, tilting her head with a slight grin, “they’ve got me doped up on enough painkillers I probably won’t remember this conversation, anyway.”

“Why did you -” He starts, “What brought you here?”

“Here? First Aid’s ambulance mode.” She says, and laughs at her own joke. “Naw,” She adds, holds out her hands, “I was a blacksmith.” She says, and little lights flicker from her palms. “Hah! Top of the pile, ‘cept for the councillors. When the hot spots were active, I must have shaped - hundreds, at least.

“They all look the same, when they come to me.” She says, looking down at her hands.” The council makes it - sacred, like. You’re ‘aiding the will of Primus’, helping them find their ‘god-given shape’. Heh.” The smile on her face is humorless. “It’s terrifying, and difficult, and messy. Nothing sacred about it. They all look the same.”

She looks at him, and there’s something in her look that pierces right through the fog of the painkillers. “You didn’t look surprised when Clicker called me ‘she’. None of you did. Are there - are there more people like me, where you’re from?”

“Yes,” he says, “Several of our crew are, er, ‘she’s. Some from Cybertron, and some from the colonies.”

“The colonies -” She says, a wistful look in her eye. “They’re real?” Megatron nods. She sighs. “Always thought - before they took away the spaceships, that is - always thought it’d be nice to go out there. Find the lost things.”

“Maybe you will.”

She laughs, almost like it’s startled out of her.  “Aren’t you a ray of sunshine?” She says, and he nearly chokes. Rodimus would about double over laughing if he ever -

Rodimus won’t ever hear it. 

“Guess we’ll need that down here, now.” Anode adds. She sighs, and stares at the sparking electricity in her hands again. “Other women from Cybertron, huh?”

“Only a few on the ship,” he says, unsure how to say that one of them is a duplicate of Anode. “But I have worked with others, before,” he says, and hopes she doesn’t ask what work.

She nods. “There’s some of us here. Not many, but - if you made it, you probably made it here.” She sighs, looking up at the ceiling. “I’m one of the lucky ones.”

Megatron considers for a moment. “You were a blacksmith.”

“Yeah. Back when I - yeah.” She says. “Fuck, it feels - it feels like a different person now. Like,” she waves her arms, “who  _ was  _ that?”

Megatron nods. 

“And it didn’t feel -” she continues, not really paying attention to him, “I didn’t know it was wrong all the time, yeah? Folks from the Primal Vanguard came back, started being ‘she’s, I thought -” she huffs, rolling her head back, somewhere between self-deprecating and bitter, “I  _ told myself _ \- well, that isn’t me, is it? I wasn’t ‘that’ different.” She snorts, shakes her head. “Even if - even if I  _ knew _ something was wrong then,” she closes her hand, cutting off the sparks there, “it didn’t hurt ‘ _ that _ ’ much, being called ‘he’.” There’s a twist to her mouth as she says the word, “Not like it ‘must’ for them. Even if I  _ wanted _ \- I couldn’t want it like they did.” She leans all the way back, tilting her head back against the slab, and chuckles. “I was kinda dumb, back then,” she says drily.

“That was before the Council - not before the council,” she clarifies, waving her hands, “but before the council became The Council, yeah?” He can hear the capital letters in her voice, “When the council became The Council - yeah,” she sighs, “you’d have to be pretty brave to do anything that suggested that you weren’t happy with what ‘ _ Primus _ ’ had ‘ _ blessed _ ’ you with.” She raises slightly shaky hands in the air to make the quotes, it reminds him of Ratchet. “I wasn’t. I thought - I didn’t need to be. I didn’t need to be that brave. I was  _ fine _ .” She huffs, shakes her head. “I told myself that. Over and over. That was less scary, you know?” She adds, sparing a glance in his direction.

She sighs, catching her breath for a moment, resting back against the medbay slab, looking up at the ceiling. Megatron doesn’t break the silence.

“You ever have a misaligned transformation cog?” She continues, finally, propping herself up a little bit and looking over at Megatron, “Not like ‘oh shit, I just got clocked in the gut, get me to First Aid’, kind of misaligned, just like - misaligned. Wrong. The kind where it’s grinding and you don’t notice until you do? That twentieth, thirtieth transformation, when you realize - it’s been misaligned this whole time, and every time, you’ve just been wearing it down from the inside. Wearing - wearing part of yourself down.” She says, looking down at her hands. “And you think - yeah, it doesn’t hurt so bad, it could hurt worse, you can get through it, you can  _ make  _ yourself get through it,” she clenches her fists, then forces herself to relax, “but it’s not - it doesn’t get better on its own, yeah? It just keeps wearing and wearing until one day,” she shrugs, “you know you have to make a change, or sooner or later you’re going to try and transform and you’ll fall apart in the street.” She reaches up and taps on her plating, right over where her t-cog must be. 

“Some things are just - unsustainable.”

He nods. “I think - I understand. A little.”

“A little’s better than none.” She says, with half a smile, then sighs. “And I thought - if I wanted - something different, how many people that I helped  _ make  _ did too? How many of those same hexagons of protoform got - got sent to the mines, or sent off as disposables, just because they came out a certain shape in my hands.” She stares down at her hands, optics slightly glazed, and Megatron can’t tell how much of that is the painkiller. “They all look the same.  _ I  _ looked the same, when I started, and if I wanted - well,” she half shrugs, waves a hand with an attempt at a chagrined smile, “who the hell was I to tell anybody else that  _ Primus _ knew what was best for them? To preach ‘Primal infallibility,’ when - when I thought - I  _ knew  _ \- ‘ _ Primus’ _ got it wrong for me?” Her hands are pressed tight together. “Who was I to sit at the top when I knew full well how easy it would have been for me to come out another shape and get shunted right to the bottom?”

He nods. 

She smiles, a tight expression, and nods back, before leaning more heavily back against the slab with a shrug. “From there - well, you asked how I got here. It’s the same as a lot of people here, I guess. Found another flier - or he found me, never been quite sure about that.” She huffs, with a wry smile. “Sympathetic. Used to be a scientist before they made him join the aerial corps,” She adds, with a slight tilt of her head, “so he wasn’t too well disposed to the Council to begin with. His conjunx is CC, he smuggled the guy underground and then here - well, not  _ here  _ here,” she adds, looking around at the walls of the cavern, pain in her optics that isn’t dulled by the painkiller in her system, “but -  _ Cyberutopia _ \- when it started to get bad in the corps for CC folks, and that - him and his conjunx, they started an underground, running folks into cyberutopia. Especially folks who already had a lot of eyes on them.” She says, tapping her optics. “Every citizen has a right to seek Sanctuary, but - you have to know it’s there, and they don’t want you to know that, and they certainly don’t want you to believe it’s - what it is. What it was.” She looks down for a moment. “And even then - well, they’re not exactly encouraging people to leave. Certainly not people - and, well, you still have to  _ get  _ here. They got me here.” She says, with a half smile, her gaze faraway, before turning back to Megatron. “You’ll hear that story a lot, trust me. Hard to find folks who haven’t met at least one of them.” She chuckles. “Don’t know where I’d be without them. Hey,” She adds, looking up at him intently, “Is there a - a me, in your universe? Suppose you probably wouldn’t know.” She adds, “big universe.”

“I did,” he says. “Meet her, that is. Not properly. It was right before we came - here.”

“Her.” She smiles. “Good. Glad I’m not - glad she’s not - yeah.” She says. “So? What is she like, other universe-me?”

“I - “ He starts, “I’m afraid I don’t know very much about her. It really was right before we left.”

“C’mon,” She says, a grin on her face, that does look familiar, “there has to be some detail.”

“Minimus -” He says, tongue tripping on the syllables. “Minimus Ambus said she was - tardy.”

“Hah! We’ve got that in common,” She says, “Minimus... huh, that name,” She looks down, frowning, then looks back up, “From your team - was he the one with the mustache?”

He nods.

“Oh. I’m sorry.” She says - his face must be too transparent; he tries to school it back to a more stoic expression. She fidgets slightly. “Er - anything else?”

“I think she was -” He struggles to remember what it was had been said about her, before they left. “I think she was an archaeologist? An adventurer of some kind.”

“An adventurer…” She says, then laughs. “So she really is going out there, finding lost things. Yeah,” she says, “yeah, that doesn’t sound half bad.” She looks at him. “I haven’t seen another you around here, if you’re wondering.”

“There isn’t one.” He says.

She looks at him. “Alright,” she says, dropping that line of questioning, a relief. “Well, we’ve got one of you now, don’t we?”

“Yes.” He says, spark twisting painfully, “Yes, I suppose you do.”


	2. Ratchet

“Megatron?” 

He turns around to look at Terminus. 

“You should let her rest,” Terminus says, and reaches out and gestures to Megatron’s dented shoulder. “You need medical attention as well.”

“I can manage,”

“Nonsense,” Terminus says, as though he has a leg - or two - to stand on in lecturing anyone  _ else  _ about accepting medical help. “Surely there’s someone here who can help you.” He adds, and Megatron can tell Terminus is actually favoring his left leg, and of course, saying nothing.

“Y’might have to wait for a bit,” Anode says, “Can’t see Aid anywhere, so must still be pretty busy. Ratch’ll probably be directing triage if you want to ask, though,”

“Ratch -?”

It can’t be.

He looks around to see where Anode is looking, and sure enough, there’s someone of about Ratchet’s height, with a red and white paint job. But there’s something - off, about his helm. He -

He turns around, and there’s a single glowing optic. 

_ Let me wake up. Let me go home.  _ He thinks - absurdly.

“The hell are you staring at?” He snaps, and it is Ratchet’s voice. “Never seen a one-eye before?”

“Ratchet?”

“That’s me,” He says, “If you need medical attention, you’ll have to get in line. First Aid’s handling three patients worse off than you -  _ Warthog! _ ” he snaps at another mech - a bulky flier who must have outweighed Ratchet by half again at least - who had started to walk towards the door. “ _ Where do you think you’re going?” _

“But Doc -”

“ _ No.  _ You lost half a wing and and a quarter of your fueling cables and I don’t  _ care  _ if you flew back here yourself you  _ are  _ getting medical attention - now  _ sit back down  _ or I’ll operate on you  _ myself! _ ” 

Looking chagrined, the mech slinks back to the makeshift gurney. 

“They’re impossible,” Ratchet mutters to himself, then turns his - optic, back around to him. “What are you still doing here? Sit down in line, you’re not hurt so bad that  _ I  _ can do anything for you.”

“Right. Yes, of course.”

Ratchet tilts his helm, looking at him. “You get hit on the head back there, or what?”

“I’m sorry,” Terminus says, stepping up next to him. “I think you look familiar to my friend, that’s all.”

Ratchet’s optic narrows, looking at Terminus and then Megatron in turn. “So Anode wasn’t completely off her gourd when she started saying there was another me running around with hands and  a face. Guess you’re both from next door, then?”

“I -”

“Oh, don’t worry about it.” Ratchet says, “And don’t blame her, First Aid had to dampen half her systems for the initial surgery.”

Another medic scurries towards him. “Ratchet - we’ve run out of energon for Skyfire.”   

“Alright, get me a line. I can donate a few units,” he says. “At least I can be of some damned use around here.” He mutters, more to himself, then adds to Megatron and Terminus. “I hope  _ your _ version of me is of more use than a energon spigot.”

“You seem to be running things well here,” Terminus says.

Ratchet huffs. “Don’t need hands to triage. Trained most of the bots around here, ones who wanted to learn, should be able to boss them around a bit. Can’t give  _ them  _ the satisfaction of going completely out of the picture.” He says, bitterly, and it’s clear he isn’t talking about these bots. “Guess your Ratchet didn’t get into as much trouble, huh?”

“The Functionists -” He coughs, “The Functionists did not develop the same amount of power in our universe as in yours.”

“You skipped out on the Functionists? You really are from the unfucked universe, aren’t you?”

He thinks about four million years of war, and doesn’t answer.

Ratchet nods at the returning medic and holds out an arm. The line fills up with energon, and Ratchet turns his optic towards them. “If you’re going to just sit around here, you might as well tell me something about two-eyed-me. He a medic too?”

A snippet of conversation comes back to him. 

_ “I wanted to be a medic.” _

_ “Really? I wanted to be a genocidal despot.” _

“Why did you decide to become a medic?” He had asked Ratchet, long after that conversation, back in his universe. “Rather than a  _ genocidal despot. _ ”

“Hah!” Ratchet snorted and looked down at his hands. “Why do you  _ think _ ?”  

“I didn’t think Orion Pax’s - medic would be so prone to Functionist rhetoric.”

“Oh, don’t act like I’m full of that same crap,” Ratchet snorted, “It was easy to start med school when you turned into an ambulance. Doesn’t mean every ambulance was cut out for it.” He grumbled. “What you really want to know is why I  _ stayed  _ a medic.” 

“Well?”

Ratchet shrugged. “I’m good at it.” He waved a hand as Megatron opened his mouth, “I  _ enjoy _ it.” He paused, and huffed, almost amused, “Fixing people - makes me -  _ heh _ \- happy, as much as some of the crew wouldn’t believe that.”

“Did you ever want to be - something else?” He asked, “Other than the ‘warlord Ratchet’, I assume.”

Ratchet snorted, then leaned back slightly, looking at the ceiling. “Huh. Haven’t thought much about anything but medic work during the war.” He shot a quick glance at Megatron, not quite a glare, before looking back up at the ceiling. “Other than that, hmm, I don’t think - hah!” The sudden laugh startled Megatron. “I had almost forgotten that.” He looked back over at Megatron. “I took an astronomy class back in my school days - had to have it for… some credit, I can’t remember. It was Thunderclash’s idea, I took it with him. And there was a second there where I thought it might be nice to be an astronomer. Stupid idea, I wasn’t particularly good at it, and it wouldn’t have been any use anyway.”

“Why an astronomer?”

“Aw, hell, Megatron, I don’t know, I was practically a kid back then.” He sighed. “I liked the stars, I guess. I liked the idea that we could be standing on our own little planet, but we could look out through space and time, and learn about the worlds that were so far away.” He said. “Of course, when I actually did get to leave our little planet and visit worlds far away, it wasn’t exactly for educational purposes.” 

Megatron glanced towards the corner, away from Ratchet. 

“Anyway,” Ratchet continued, letting the thread fall. “The observatory was quiet most of the time, and there weren’t too many people. It was… nice.”

Megatron laughed. “Like you would have enjoyed that, spending all your time away from people.”

Ratchet grumbled, glaring at him halfheartedly. “I think you’re getting too comfortable on this ship.” 

Megatron chuckled. “Did you take any more astronomy courses after that?”

“What? No, of course not.” Ratchet said. “I had my medic training to think about.”

“You didn’t think about switching?”

“No.” He sighed. “Not really. Being a medic is more important. I save lives. What would I have  _ done  _ as an astronomer?” He huffed. “It’s not like there’s anything to regret, even if I had switched, the Functionists started gaining influence in the academy soon enough after, and I would have been back in the med track, just a few years behind.”

Megatron considered him. “They were wrong, you know. Your worth is not just what you can  _ do  _ for the system. Even for people.”

“If you start spouting one of your manifestos I’m making First Aid take over your treatment.” He says. He raises a hand to forstall what Megatron was going to reply. “I  _ have  _ read them, and even if I hadn’t, I knew damn well better than to think some people are ‘disposable’, or that fliers are only good for flying, or whatever else nonsense. That doesn’t mean medicine isn’t  _ important _ .” He shakes his head. “Someone's got to try and help people, otherwise we’re nowhere.”

“They still would have been wrong, to make you change tracks.”

“It was  _ my _ choice. It wasn’t like I predicted the future. It was just the one course. And -” Ratchet added. “I’m not kidding, this is - Drift would probably call it something stupid, like ‘my calling’ or some such.” He frowned, looking at the floor, not at Megatron. “It’s what I wanted to be doing. Besides,” he continued, “Too many people would have died in the war if I hadn’t had the training I got.” He crossed his arms, practically daring Megatron to contradict him.

“The war is over,” he said, not taking the dare. “As much trouble as this ship seems to get into, you don’t need to be in the med bay all the time. You have a very competent staff. You could have - a hobby.”

Ratchet looked at him like Ultra Magnus being asked to define ‘fun’. “A hobby.”

“Why not go back to astronomy? Learn something new.”

“Yes, why don’t I just pick up a telescope and start stargazing from our quantum jumping spaceship.” Ratchet snorted. 

“There could be other ways to learn.” He suggested, but let it drop. Ratchet huffs, but doesn’t continue the argument. 

“What about you?” Ratchet asked, finally. “Why did you want to be a medic?”

He thought of Terminus. “I wanted to be able to help people.”

_ I wanted to be able to help people. _

“Yes,” He says to the Ratchet of this universe. “The Ratchet in my universe is a medic.” 

“Huh. Guess it does stick.” Ratchet says.

“Why did you decide to become a medic?”

“Doesn’t really matter now, does it?” Ratchet -  _ this  _ Ratchet says, shrugging and holding up his claws, in response to Megatron’s question.  “I wanted to help people, now I can’t.” He says. “Not that I always could,” He sighs. “Plenty of people I didn’t manage to fix, and now I’m about as much use as they are.” He taps the side of his helm with one of his claws,” At least it’s appropriate.”

“No one deserves what they’ve done to you.” Megatron has to bite his voice back from becoming a snarl. 

Ratchet’s optic narrows in something like a glare. “Wasn’t saying it was  _ right _ .” He huffs. “Guess you’re not used to being around one-eyes, can’t even recognize irony. Consider yourselves lucky,” he adds. 

“There’s no need to be so hard on yourself,” Terminus says.

“Heh,” Ratchet says. “Your Ratchet, was he CMO in your universe?”

Megatron nods. 

“Worst job I ever took.” He says, “Hell, the money helped me do some good, but try coming back from tightening a Senator’s elbow joint to a dead body on your step. Some days I felt about as useless as I do now.”

“You were CMO and they still did - this?” Terminus asks.

“Heh,” Ratchet says, “When your CMO’s a soft spark who spends his free time setting up shop in Dead End… well,” He snorts, “They could ‘put up’ with that. When your CMO starts making repairs to one-eyes, and disabling the Council’s kill-switches,  _ well _ …” He shrugs. “Took them a while to figure that out, but when they did -” He sighs, “One warning, of course, then they made me an ‘example’ for any other soft-sparked medics in the line. Not that  _ that  _ would be a problem, since Pharma took over.” He says, rolling his eye.

“Can’t you -” Terminus starts.

Ratchet sighs. “Can’t just  _ make  _ medic’s hands, and - well, I suppose First Aid could build a new helm, but,” He shrugs, his eye still on the claws that have replaced his hands. 

Oh, he and Ratchet had certainly - well, not  _ argued,  _ certainly  _ discussed  _ the matter of medic’s hands at length. But he doesn’t think this cave is the right place to open this discussion with this Ratchet. 

“I’m sorry.” He says instead, “For what it’s worth, I think we’re all very fortunate to have you here.”

He huffs. “Not one to go out like Inquest, all ‘blaze of glory’ type. No,” He says, almost regretful. “No, bits and pieces for me. Suppose I got lucky. They decided ‘making an example’ was more important than going all-out on the punishment. Stayed old school, no screen, no shadowplay. They wanted me to be more ‘recognizable’, so I ‘got’ to keep my voice. It’s something.” He sighs, and after a moment, holds up his claws. “Guess they figured taking my hands was enough punishment for a medic.”

Under the not-quite-regret the words themselves are matter-of-fact. Words - words he thought he had long since left behind. The way Ratchet speaks of his own empurata, the flat way he says shadowplay - that the Functionists had extended to stealing  _ voiceboxes -  _ and that all of this is ordinary enough that Ratchet can speak of it in this deadened, resigned way, and -

_ bits and pieces _

This isn’t how Ratchet is supposed to  _ be. _

“Ah, hell, don’t look so uptight about it,” Ratchet says, looking at him. “I’m fine. Got it better than half the people here, it feels like.”

“Did you ever want to be an astronomer?” He asks, hardly even aware of why the words are coming out of his mouth. 

Ratchet boggles at him. “What? You - what kind of question is that?”

“Something - something Ra - the Ratchet from my universe said once.”

Ratchet laughs. “ _ Astronomy.  _ Well,” He says, “Can’t think of when I’d ever’ve had a chance to think about something like  _ that …”  _ He rocks back on his pedes, tilting his optic back to the ceiling, and it’s so familiar it hurts. “Huh, no, there was that course with Thunderclash…” He huffs. “Hardly remember anything back  _ that  _ far. I still had two eyes!” 

“I suppose you had to close one, to look through the telescope.”

Ratchet lets out a sudden, amused huff of laughter, almost surprised. “At least you don’t tiptoe.” 

“Ever think about taking it up again?”

“What, now that I only have one eye for the lens?” Ratchet snorts. “If I had, it’d certainly be out of reach now.” He says, looking around at the tunnel walls and ceiling. 

“We aren’t going to be here forever.”

“Well now aren’t you the optimist.” Ratchet says with a scoff. “Besides, it’s not like I’m so useless that I can’t do any good here, rather than my head stuck in the sky.”

“You’re assuming that discovery lacks value.” Megatron says, “Being able to learn more about our universe is a profound gift. As a wise man once said, ‘We are a way for the universe to know itself.’”

“What?” Ratchet says. “Huh. Must just be from your universe.”

Because of course this Ratchet wouldn’t know that. This Ratchet never griped about the selections at Swerve’s movie night, when Megatron had been dragged there to ‘gain an appreciation for human culture’, or picked out documentaries while the bar complained, or quoted human scientists talking about time and space and science and exploration. This Ratchet had no reason to know anything about Earth, or human tv shows, or -

He’d go to every one of Swerve’s ridiculous movie nights, if they came back for him.

He’d listen to Rung, and he’d go to every one of Ratchet’s checkups without complaint, and smile at Velocity more, and stop shouting at Rodimus, and tell Minimus -

But he’s never going home.

“It’s nothing. I -” he shakes his head. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to -” He doesn’t know what he didn’t mean to do. 

Ratchet just shrugs. “It’s alright,”

It isn’t.

One of the other medics steps over to detach the energon line from Ratchet’s arm, the energon transfer vessel full.  Ratchet sighs. 

“You’ll have to wait a while for First Aid to be ready to help with your shoulder. Don’t think it’s going to slow down anytime soon.” Ratchet says, and as Megatron looks around, he can’t help but agree. 

“My friend - Terminus - his leg is injured.” Terminus shoots him a startled look. “Is - is there  _ anything  _ I can do, before he can be seen.”

Ratchet snorts. “Fancy yourself a field medic, huh? Well,” he adds, looking over at Megatron, “your hands are better than mine, at least. Sit down, both of you - no, don’t even try to tell me it’s not hurt, I can see the way you’re standing, sit  _ down _ .”

Ratchet carefully pulls down a device from a nearby shelf, and inspects Terminus’s leg. “Ah, yeah, it’s straightforward enough. The dented plating pinched a fuel line - that could get nasty, but you caught it quick,” he nods to Megatron. “You’ll want First Aid to check over the fuel line properly, in case there’s any structural damage, but I can show you how to get the plating sorted so it’s not doing any  _ more  _ damage, at least.”

If he didn’t look at Ratchet, he could almost forget that it wasn’t the Ratchet he knows, giving him directions. But the claws jabbing at his hands when he makes a misstep are reminder enough.

“That should do it.” Ratchet says, as Megatron finishes reattaching the piece of leg plating.

He looks up at Ratchet’s optic. Ratchet nods. “That was - competent.” He says - high praise.  “I still want First Aid to look at that fuel line, and I don’t like the look of your shoulder. I’ll have someone find you when it clears up. Might as well find a better place to sit around than here.” He says, as he stands up. “

“I - yes.” He says, recognizing the brush-off and looking around. “I’m not sure where to go.” He finally admits. 

Ratchet huffs. “Tell me about it. This is - this is new.” He adds, looking around at the walls of the tunnel. “I suppose Starscream’ll start handling it eventually, for most of the folks.”

“I - Starscream??”

“He normally handles new refugee resettlement. And as I suppose we’re all refugees now -” He shrugs. “Don’t expect him to be going anywhere until First Aid finishes patching up his conjunx. Starscream didn’t get hit too hard, but Skyfire took a bad one.” He looks over his shoulder, and following his gaze Megatron sees the edge of Starscream’s silhouette.  “He should be alright, but it’ll be a while before they’re around. Might as well grab your own patch of ground in the meantime.”

He’s hardly noticed Ratchet’s words. He hasn’t looked away from Starscream’s silhouette.  

“You look like you just lost a fuel line.” Ratchet says, detatching the energon line, “Did you have one of him in your universe?”

He stares at Starscream. “You could say that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The dialogue about Megatron having wanted to become a medic is from Dark Cybertron.
> 
> The Earth quote that Megatron references is from Carl Sagan's Cosmos, because you can't tell me Ratchet wouldn't be a huge Carl Sagan nerd if he was introduced to Cosmos while on Earth.
> 
> Inquest is an OC borrowed with permission from Kamemor, Warthog is mine - if you're reading Meet in the Middle, you'll probably recognize their main universe counterpart from there.


	3. Starscream

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The 'references to past abuse' tag is in full effect for this chapter, for reasons you can probably guess based on the chapter title. If you want to skip the bulk of that conversation, or would like a few more details, check for more details in the end notes.

“Come on, get up.”

He wakes up to Starscream standing over him and a surge of reflexive rage. His right arm is extended before he even remembers that he doesn’t have his fusion cannon. 

“Primus, you’re tetchy.” Starscream takes a step back to move out of reach, but doesn’t otherwise flinch. His left wing is patched roughly, and his plating is dull in a way the Starscream he knew would never have tolerated. “Come on, we’re sorting all of this out.”

He looks around at the tunnel walls, his processor finally catching up with where he was. He and Terminus had eventually been seen by First Aid, and afterwards, exhausted and with no where else to go, had stopped in the same part of the tunnels they had rested before. 

“Megatron?” Terminus, having gone into recharge next to him, blinks back into awareness. 

Starscream looks at Terminus. “Alright, you too. Come on.” He looks at them both. “You’ve both been to see First Aid, right?” 

“Yes,” Megatron says, coughs. “Yes, we have,”

Starscream looks at him, and then at Terminus, and then back at him, putting pieces together. “So  _ you’re  _ the one who was on all our comms back there.”

“Yes,”

“Well, if Click wants you in ‘housing’, such as it is, close to the new ‘AVL central command’ or  _ whatever _ they end up doing, you’ll have to take it up with him.  _ We’ve _ got enough work on our hands trying to recover recharge slabs and energon to deal with  _ that _ .”

“You were in the air?”

“I’m a  _ flier _ ,” Starscream says, with unexpected bitterness. “Aren’t I?” He looks away from Megatron, who finds he has nothing to say. “I’m not in the air now, because I have a  _ job.  _ I’m not here to fight a war,” Starscream continues, “I’m trying to keep  **_my_ ** _ people  _ safe. That meant flying for an hour there.  _ Now _ it means getting a functioning power supply so that no one offlines in the tunnels.”

“Star?” 

A taller, white mech, who he recognizes vaguely as Skyfire, walks around the corner towards Starscream. He has multiple welds and patches along his midsection, and looks tired.

“The survey of this sector is done.” Skyfire says, “We have a working map for this part, at least.”

“How does it look?”

Skyfire smiles weakly. Starscream snorts. 

Skyfire leans over to give him a quick kiss. 

“You have excellent timing.” Starscream says, with a quick smile. “These two are the last of the stragglers in this sector.”

Skyfire smiles at them. “I’m Skyfire. This is Starscream, my conjunx.”

“I’m Terminus,” Terminus introduces himself, “And this is Megatron,” he adds, when it becomes clear that Megatron’s processor has stalled to the point of forgetting words. “Thank you for your help.”

“Of course,” Terminus says, and Skyfire extends a hand to help Terminus up from the ground. Megatron stands up on his own. 

Skyfire and Starscream talk softly as they make their way towards a larger open cavern, in which dozens of people are already gathered. Terminus looks to him and he leads the way to a point where the two of them can stand along the back wall, near the exit. Starscream makes his way through the crowd, Starfire behind him, and people try to gather in close around him before he can even make it close to the center of the room, voices raised in a murmur of fearful questions. Starscream moves past them, turning and sliding, pressing light touches to passing shoulders and outstretched arms as he carefully maneuvers his way through. 

Finally, Starscream reaches the approximate center of the space, where the ground is raised slightly, and the crowd retreats slightly to give him space. 

Even as the crowd falls back, voices raise again 

“What happens now?”

“What happened to Cyberutopia?”

“How are we going to survive down here?”

“We’ve lost everything, how can we -?”

“I can’t find my amica, how are we -?”

“ _ Attention! _ ” Starscream shouts across the room, and suddenly everyone goes silent. “We do not have the luxury of  _ panic  _ right now. If we are all to survive down here, you need to  _ pull yourselves together! _ ” 

His words are harsh, but the crowd is utterly still and focused on them. 

“I know many faces here - Kalr, Skyfire found you and your conjux before you could both be put through empurata. Cirrus, I found you and Splatter your first housing here.”

“And now I have to listen to him snore!” The cybertronian in question shouts back, and astonishingly, laughter breaks out in the terrified crowd.

Starscream scoffs at the interruption, but there’s a hint of a smile at the corner of his mouth that he’s not quite hiding. “I’ll have you know,” He says haughtily, “That Skyfire’s snoring is worse, so I wouldn’t go so far as to complain.” 

Skyfire, behind him, shakes his head and mouths ‘He’s worse’ 

“Toren,” Starscream continues, to a crowd whose mood is substantially lighter. “Skyfire and I smuggled you and your spark-twin into Cyberutopia.” A cybertronian in the crowd nods. “There’s few of you that we haven’t seen come here, and that’s why I can say with full confidence that you are all some of the strongest Cybertronians I have had the privilege to know. And that is why I know that, together, we  _ will  _ survive this. I swear that on my spark. 

“Our former home has been destroyed.” Starscream says, and there are scattered gasps in the crowd, but mostly people huddle closer together, resigned. “But Cyberutopia is not gone. Together,  _ we _ are Cyberutopia. As long as we stand together, no one can destroy that.”

The crowd is hanging on his every word. The resigned slump of shoulders across the crowd raises slightly, standing up straighter.

“The  _ AVL _ ” and he doesn’t quite keep a faint twist of distaste from his voice. “Along with many volunteers from among you, has successfully destroyed the weapon used to tear apart our city. For now, we are safe. More importantly, the brave efforts and quick thinking of several among our number - Rundown, Shutter, Aftermarket - we have saved and salvaged a significant stockpile of energon, key electrical supplies, and a large number of recharge slabs.”

“Isotope helped too!” One of the members of the crowd shouts, “And Taucris!” another adds. In their shouts, they carry the change in the mood of the crowd; no longer terrified victims, they are a team, unified in their resistance and survival.

“And Isotope and Taucris,” Starscream adds, and again there’s that faint edge of a smile he doesn’t quite hide. “For this reason, in acknowledgement of their role in securing our recovery, I am directing Skyfire to ensure that these th - these five have first choice in options for living space in our new home.”

“Before this is possible,” Starscream continues, “We need to distribute the supplies we now have. Skyfire has assembled a map of the tunnels we are currently occupying. Aftermarket, Kalr, anyone else here with electrical and engineering expertise, you will be in charge of setting up the recovered generators. Skyfire will be in charge of directing a team to run electrical lines through the cave system when you are done; assemble as many people as you need. Once that is complete, Aftermarket and Kalr, you can then move on to assessing the recharge slabs and making any repairs before they are distributed.

“Shutter and Rundown, you will be in charge of collecting the recovered energon and assessing our stockpile. All energon distribution decisions” Starscream says to the crowd at large, “will go through them.”

“Megatron?” Terminus asks, softly. “Are you alright?”

He’s shaking. 

Terminus, mercifully, gets  _ something _ from his total lack of response, and guides him back into the hall by way of gentle pressure on his forearm. Once out of sight, and out of earshot of the crowd, Megatron leans up against the wall, forcing the rock to dig into his back. 

_ You ruined him _

Starscream the schemer, Starscream the treacherous, Starscream; the blade at his back to keep him sharp.

Starscream the whipping boy. 

_ You did this. _

This is who he could have been. This is who he was supposed to be.

_ This is who he is without you.  _

His Starscream, ruling Cybertron - something he had believed doomed to failure, power stolen and schemed to hold on to, but now -

After what he’d seen in that room, it felt like a broken echo of what  _ Starscream _ was always capable of. Who he was.  

_ You broke him.  _

_ You did this. _

His system attempts to purge his tank, but there is nothing there.

“Megatron?”

_ You did this! _

_ you destroy everything you destroy everyone you destroy you are nothing but destruction _

Terminus is standing over him, a hand on his back moving in comforting circles. 

In the distance, he can still hear Starscream’s voice - this Starscream, the Starscream he didn’t touch, the Starscream he didn’t break - directing the crowd.

_ You did this to him.  _

_ You chose to. You chose to over and over. You broke him apart again and again and again and it was your choice. _

_ It was you. You did this. _

“- and Drift, will be assigned to -”

The name jolts him out of his spiralling thoughts. 

What was Drift without him? Who could Drift become?

“Megatron?” 

He finally makes himself look up at Terminus. “I’ll - be alright.”

“What happened?” Terminus asks. When he doesn’t answer, Terminus continues, “The speaker - Starscream. You know him. How?”

“He was - “ he laughs, a dull echo in his chest. “My whipping boy.” He tilts his head back against the wall. “He was not like this in my universe. I made him something else.” 

In all the things he’s regretted, he hasn’t regretted this - not until now, not until this. Under the guise of inevitability, of justification, of the confidence, the smugness with which Starscream had spoken about him only being a  _ looter _ -

He hadn’t wanted Starscream to define his legacy, but maybe he already had. Starscream was a living monument to the consequences of his own existence; violence and abuse and destruction.

“What did you do?” Terminus asks, and maybe he imagines the edge to his voice, maybe he’s only projecting his own self loathing back.

_ What did I do? _

When he thinks back, his mind doesn’t go to Starscream, it goes to the crack of his fist as he’d hit Minimus, the onrush of guilt he’d felt when he’d recognized the face he had tried to draw his absent cannon on -

Guilt he should have felt sooner. 

“I hit him.” His voice sounds deadened and flat to his own ears, it doesn’t quite register that he is saying the words. “He was my second in command and I hit him. Repeatedly. I broke him down and treated him like scrap and -”  _ I liked it.  _ “I can’t do that again. Not to anyone. I can’t - please, Terminus, don’t let me do that again.”

“If you don’t want to hurt your allies again, then don’t.” Terminus says, like it’s that simple, and maybe it is. Terminus has a habit of being right. “Are you going to hit him?”

“I thought - I almost did, when he woke me up. Starscream - Starscream standing over me hasn’t always ended well.” He says. “Me standing over Starscream ended - worse.” He adds, and resists the urge to attempt to purge his tank again. 

“Are you going to hit him  _ now _ ?”

“No - no. I won’t. I don’t - I don’t want to.”

“Do you want to hit anyone here?”

“I -” The first moment he’d seen Terminus in over four million years, it had been with the ruin of his cannon drawn.  “I nearly shot Ratchet. Just - just before you arrived.” He says, “I hurt Tailgate.  _ I hit Minimus. _ ”

“Why did you do that?” Terminus’s voice is level, steady; it is the only thing keeping Megatron from wanting to purge his tank again.

“I thought I was being attacked -” He starts, thinking of the screams, shoved into his head, “And - and when I thought I had lost myself.”  _ Lost control.  _

“Are those the reasons you hit Starscream?”

Starscream -

How to catalogue the reasons he had hit Starscream? Because he was angry, because he wanted to assert that he was powerful, because he wanted control -

Control, but never over himself. 

And when he thought he had lost control -

“Perceptor,” He says. “I - attacked,” he forces himself to say the word, forces himself to admit it, “I attacked Perceptor. Because I thought I had lost control of the - of the situation. At the time.” 

Terminus pauses for a long moment. “Would you do the same thing now?” He asks, finally, deliberatively. It feels more like judgement than any moment in the court on Luna 2 could have.

And Megatron thinks back to that person, the Megatron who had thought he was about to be erased from time, the Megatron who had spoken to Orion Pax, spoken of feeling lost, of -

Orion Pax.

He remembers what Roller had said. 

“No.” He says, and as he says it he realizes he believes it is true. 

Terminus nods, Megatron can just see his chin dip down slightly, his face is mostly tilted upwards, towards the ceiling, in shadow, so Megatron cannot see his expression.

“I suppose,” Megatron adds, after a moment, a wry twist to his voice that he does not feel, “you regret telling me to lead more with my fists.”

“I was wrong,” Terminus says, and Megatron looks up sharply, surprised, “You proved that, yesterday. You stepped up and led, even in a fight, without striking a single blow. You do not need your fists to take action - to  _ lead _ , and,” he continues, “leadership is what these people need.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you admit you were wrong,” 

“It is only because you have outshone my expectations.” Terminus says, and he tilts his head so Megatron can see his smile.

Megatron shakes his head. “No,” he says, “no, if I have exceeded them even for a moment, it is only after the hard experience of having spent so many millenia bitterly disappointing you.”

Terminus is silent for a moment, looking back up at the ceiling. “You said,” he says at last, “that the person I thought you were was the person you wanted to be.”

He thinks bitterly of an empty transporter pad. “Yes.”

“I have seen nothing that would tell me you are not capable of being that person. You certainly cannot say you did not do everything in your power to keep your word.” Terminus says, not looking at him. 

“Didn’t you hear -”

“I heard what you said.” Terminus says. “And if you want to walk back in there and beat this Starscream to scrap, you can do that. I am stronger than I was, but I would not assume that I am strong enough to stop you. And if you want to become the kind of person who would leave injured workers to starve and die in the mines, and never see the suns - well, you can choose to do that too. 

“You have choices to make about how you treat your people. I know I haven’t been back here long, but it seems to me that you’ve already decided not to abuse them. If you change back to the way you have told me you were, that will be your choice.”

He thinks about Starscream, about Starscream’s testimony, the way he had painted Megatron as buffeted by circumstance and more powerful individuals, without leadership, without will. 

Without choice.

“You make it sound so easy,” He says, leaning his head back against the wall.

“I did not say it was easy,” Terminus says, and Megatron could almost laugh at the familiarity of being lectured by Terminus. For a moment, he reminds Megatron very much of Ratchet.  “I said it was a choice. Choices aren’t always easy; choices that matter hardly ever are.” He doesn’t quite meet Megatron’s eyes.

Megatron sighs, letting his head fall back down. He presses a hand over the Autobot badge, still on his chest. 

“I won’t pretend,” Terminus says, “that this is a choice you only have to make once. Choices you have to make every day are always the hardest. But you have been making it, in the time I have been here, and,” Terminus adds, more gently, “you - you are not alone. I -” he starts, and then pauses for long enough that Megatron looks up. Terminus is looking at the ceiling, Megatron can’t see his expression. “I am sorry for - for not being there for you when you needed me.”

Megatron feels a rush of guilt - that Terminus can apologize for Megatron’s choice in the tunnels, for  _ being left behind - _

“I may not be able to stop you if you choose to be - who you say you were, but I am here to help you for as long as I am able. As long as being this person continues to be the choice you make.”

_ you are not alone. _

He hadn’t been alone on the Lost Light, not truly, not even at the beginning, when he had felt utterly so. Even then, every day, he had hardly been able to avoid people, people who knew exactly who he’d been, and he is terrified that was the only weld holding  _ this _ person together. Even at the beginning, he had spoken to Ultra Magnus about command business, he had gone to Ratchet for his dose of -

He ducks his head between his knees. “There’s no such thing as fool’s energon.” He mutters to himself. 

“What?”

“Something Ratchet told me,” he says. “I suppose it always is a choice.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The conversation about past abuse of Starscream is mostly in broad strokes terms, any limited specifics are about instances in MTMTE canon itself, referring to characters other than Starscream, and there are no extended flashbacks in either case. To skip the bulk of the conversation, skip from around "You broke him." to "Terminus nods, Megatron can just see his chin dip down slightly,"
> 
> Thanks to Kepler, Mairi, and Soundwave-and-Cassettes for the loan of their OC's for the crowd scene - all the rest are my OC's or named after characters from Ann Leckie's Imperial Radch trilogy and Provenance, which I cannot recommend highly enough if you're a fan of MTMTE.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm also squireofgeekdom on tumblr, come say hi! 
> 
> I've got a playlist of music I'll listen to while writing this - as always, it's disorganized and I make no apologies for my music taste :D https://open.spotify.com/user/squireofgeekdom/playlist/2s0hrVloQ6QQeF2oafh5Xc?si=yuPGxCZiT-uY1Yo7GPjQ8w  
> Alternatively, just listen to 'everything you paid for' on repeat.


End file.
